Here It Signalled “A Rejection of the Conventional View That Every Civilized Person Belonged to a Community Among Communities” (Appiah Xiv)

Thamyris/Intersecting No. 16 (2007) 9–18 Introduction: Cosmopatriots: On Distant Belongings and Close Encounters Jeroen de Kloet and Edwin Jurriëns Asian Crisis? Since the last fin de siècle, the East and Southeast Asian region has undergone turbulent events and developments: regime changes, economic crises, natural disasters, terrorism attacks. Some of these experiences have directly affected peoples’ notion of the nation-state – such as Hong Kong’s “transfer,” to use but one of the many euphemisms employed to describe that rainy Tuesday on 1 July 1997, from British back to Chinese hands; but also the 1998 fall of Suharto and subsequent calls for Reformasi,decentralization and regional autonomy in Indonesia. Although groups in society have expressed their disappointment or anger about their governments, this has not always – surprisingly perhaps – reduced their “patriotism,” or love for their country. The Asian financial crisis at the end of the 1990s was paralleled by an increase, rather than a decrease, of different tropes of patriotism. Perceptions have changed not only due to developments or events within the boundaries of the nation-state, such as tendencies towards regional autonomy (strengthening a love for the region rather than the nation), but also because of altered international configurations. For instance, under the influence of the highly increased globalization of trade, media and education, different groups in different Asian societies have become real or virtual travelers, engaging in multiple cultural experiences. The “cosmopolitanism” of these groups may and does feed into their patriotic belongings, and vice versa. This book will analyze mediated articulations of what we have coined “cosmopatriotism” in popular cultures and arts of East and Southeast Asia. But why, one may ask, did we opt for this neologism? Introduction: Cosmopatriots: On Distant Belongings and Close Encounters | 9 Cosmopatriotism in the age of intense globalization With the perceived rise of global terrorism, which may well be interpreted as one of the symptoms of our risk society (Beck), or as a quite sinister manifestation of a profoundly networked world (Castells), the academic and social quest for ethical alternatives or answers has rapidly increased. Religious fundamentalism, vibrant nationalism and global terrorism are intricately embedded in processes of intense globalization. Over the past years, a more cosmopolitan take on our globalized world has been proposed as one possible answer to the crises we are facing today (Appiah; Beck; Nussbaum; Turner). In the words of Beck: “after communism and neoliberalism, the next big idea is needed – and this could be cosmopolitanism” (20–21). It is a term that can be traced back to the Cynics of the fourth century BC, where it signalled “a rejection of the conventional view that every civilized person belonged to a community among communities” (Appiah xiv). More than 200 years ago, Immanuel Kant, who, ironically, never left Königsberg himself, referred to cosmopolitanism as being a citizen of two worlds – cosmos and polis (Beck 18). With Kant, the term became intrinsically associated with the Enlightenment, prob- ably also adding to its potential imperialistic undertone, as the terms of condition for world citizenship seem to be set by the West. Consequently, as Van der Veer states, it is a trope of colonial and secular modernity: “Cosmopolitanism is the Western engagement with the rest of the world and that engagement is a colonial one, which simultaneously transcends the national boundaries and is tied to them” (10). Indeed, also today, the term evokes the image of the affluent world citizen, who in his (rather than her) Italian hand-made suit flies elegantly across the globe, attending business meetings or conferences, equally at home in Jakarta as in New York. In this view, the cosmopolitans are those who hold passports, have jobs and are fervent col- lectors of air miles. These are, indeed, mostly white men. But, in our view, the term can and ought to be rescued from its elitist connota- tions. In his book “Cosmopolitanism – Ethics in a World of Strangers,” Appiah force- fully argues for the ethical need, if not obligation, to feel responsible to strangers, one that necessitates us to operate from a logic of “universality plus difference” (151). In his lucid story, in which he points at the risks of cultural preservation and its underlying belief in purity and essence, a position that he shares with Sen, Appiah presents a deeply global, interconnected perspective on our contemporary world. It is relevant that Appiah writes of ethics, rather than idealism. The colonial and secular trope of cosmopolitanism may well be called an ideal, referring to an idealism, “in the sense of idealization, of valorization; but also in the sense of turning-into-an-idea” (Chow xxi). Yet, as Chow aptly remarks, history shows that idealism is always anchored in violence (xxii). The move from cosmopolitanism as an ideal towards an ethics of cosmopolitanism implies a move away from an authoritative moral discourse. 10 | Jeroen de Kloet and Edwin Jurriëns Thamyris/Intersecting No. 16 (2007) 9–18 To paraphrase Chow once more: to propose a kind of ethics after idealism is thus not to confirm the attainment of an entirely independent critical direction, but rather to put into practice a supplementing imperative – to follow, to supplement idealism doggedly with non-benevolent readings, in all the dangers that supplementarity entails. (xxii) Yet, while Appiah points at the importance of acknowledging differences, and thus provides a space for the local and the national within the cosmopolitan, his sole focus on the ethics of cosmopolitanism runs the danger of reinstating its assumed opposition to patriotism. Martha Nussbaum strongly opposes patriotism to cosmopolitanism, devaluing the first for its narrow-mindedness while celebrating the lat- ter for its ethical righteousness (Nussbaum). Also Ulrich Beck, in his plea for a methodological cosmopolitanism in the social sciences, seemingly falls into the trap of juxtaposing the national with the cosmopolitan when he writes that: the national perspective is a monologic imagination, which excludes the otherness of the other. The cosmopolitan perspective is an alternative imagination, an imagination of alternative ways of life and rationalities, which include the otherness of the other. (23) For Beck, the national is no longer the national, instead, it has to be rediscovered as the “internalised global” (23). But on observing the passionate intensity with which citizens relate to “their” country, one may wonder if this theoretical globalization of the local resonates with everyday realities. Rather than trying to insist on globalization – as indeed, at this juncture in time, the global is located within the local (Fabian 5) – it may prove more helpful to acknowledge and unpack the dialectics that exist between the local, the national, the regional and the global. What, in the age of a new political order of globalization that has been so aptly described as one of Empire by Hardt and Negri (2000), remains of the nation-state? Already in 1927, Sun Yat-sen argued that nationalism is, in fact, the necessary basis of cosmopolitanism: [Western colonial powers] are now advocating cosmopolitanism to inflame us, declaring that, as the civilization of the world advances and as mankind’s vision enlarges, nationalism becomes too narrow, unsuited to the present age, and hence, that we should espouse cosmopolitanism…We must understand that cosmopolitanism grows out of nationalism; if we want to extend cosmopolitanism we must first establish strongly our own nationalism. If nationalism cannot become strong, cosmopolitanism certainly cannot prosper. (Cheah 30) This is not to say that nationalism is without its dangers, both official nationalism that helps to legitimize the power of the nation-state’s government, as well as unoffi- cial nationalism that stirs up fierce popular sentiments, are strong forces of exclu- sion and aggression. But to juxtapose nationalism to cosmopolitanism ignores the intricate mutual dependencies between both structures of feeling. Here we follow Van der Veer’s assertion that “instead of perceiving cosmopolitanism and nationalism as alternatives, one should perhaps recognize them as the Introduction: Cosmopatriots: On Distant Belongings and Close Encounters | 11 poles in a dialectical relationship” (10). Beck, somehow contradicting his earlier assertion, also warns against this juxtaposition when he explains his concept of methodological cosmopolitanism, which rejects the either-or principle and assembles the this-as-well-as-that principle – like “cosmopolitan patriots,” patriots of two worlds. What the cosmologic signifies in its thinking and living in terms of inclusive oppositions (including nature into society etc.) and rejecting the logic of exclusive oppositions, which characterized methodological nationalism and first modernity sociology. (Beck 19, italics his) It may all boil down to a rather simple observation: we need roots in order to have wings (Beck 19). It is not a question of either roots or routes – to paraphrase Clifford – but more so of the balancing between both, if not their mutual cannibalization. Rather than searching for the truly globalized cosmopolitans, we are looking for the postcolo- nial, rooted cosmopolitans. Two terms reign when it comes to conceptualizing the roots: patriotism – which stands for love for

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